


Book Two: (Everyone Is) Kung-Fu Fighting

by Zoanzon



Series: Used To The Darkness, a MCU remix [2]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Character Death, Gen, Major Character Injury, TIME TO FIX THAT, bullet point fic, we have two different supernatural orders in the mcu and zero connection between them?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:02:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28357452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoanzon/pseuds/Zoanzon
Summary: In which the events of The Defenders is complicated by the fact that the Sorcerer Supreme is living in the same city, and is curious why a dying man being chased by ninjas took shelter in his Sanctum.In fact, this doesnotmake everything go better than it did in canon.
Series: Used To The Darkness, a MCU remix [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1265882
Kudos: 2





	1. White Guys & Asian Mystic Orders

**Author's Note:**

> I've wanted to play with the fact that we have two separate supernatural orders in MCU - K'un Lun in the tv series, and Kamar-Taj in connection to Doctor Strange and the movies - that are both old enough that they should have knowledge of one another.
> 
> MCU itself didn't - likely because of budget - but I don't have to worry about that, now do I? And if it helps set up some of the divergence points in my time-travel series...well, two birds with one stone is always a good time.
> 
> [Title is from 'Kung-Fu Fighting' by Carl Douglas.]

  * **_Outside-Context Mystic Orders_**



  *     * Story opens with a wounded figure seen running through New York, eventually barging through the door of the NYC Sanctum
    * Responding to the intrusion, Doctor Strange finds the wounded figure bleeding out in the entryway; while trying to apply medical aide, the figure cuts off his attempt to open a portal to a hospital by telling Strange it would put civilians in danger
    * Cue the appearance of Hand ninja, and a fight with Strange and the wounded Chaste member v. Hand ninja; Strange and Chaste win, but Chaste’s injuries are worsened
    * Slowly dying, the figure - a member of the Chaste - tells Strange of K’un-Lun’s strained ties with Kamar-Taj, but that the heretics banished from K’un-Lun - The Hand - were putting in motions plans that threatened all of them, and that he needs to find the Iron Fist
    * Finally the Chaste member dies, and Strange is left to figure out _what the fuck_ just happened, considering ‘Chaste’ and ‘Hand’ and ‘K’un-Lun’ mean absolutely nothing to him
    * **_-Scene Break-_**
    * Book Two is partway through the canon plot of The Defenders, with Iron Fist + Luke Cage + Jessica Jones + Daredevil having all escaped from Midland Circle and hiding at the Royal Dragon restaurant; Jessica has momentarily left as Daredevil’s old mentor Stick crashes the meeting to infodump on the Hand
    * The events of the prologue kick in at some point during the Royal Dragon meeting, when Strange portals in to the meeting looking for Iron Fist due to the dying words of the Chaste member; a fight nearly breaks out, but Stick and/or Iron Fist know what the Sorcerer Supreme is, and a new round of meet-and-greet (and ‘oh yeah, heres how the city is in danger’) is quickly covered
    * Alexandra Reid - head of the Hand - appears and recognizes _what_ Strange is, being of Kamar-Taj and being the Sorcerer Supreme
    * When Iron Fist refuses to leave with Reid and the Hand attacks the Royal Dragon, the five co-founders of the Hand step up their game a bit and show why they truly are threats, engaging the Defenders + Stick + Strange
    * Partway through, Jessica makes her explosive return and helps tip the fight back towards the Defenders
    * Needless to say, the restaurant gets trashed, badly
    * One side-effect of Strange’s inclusion and the resulting ‘time to be serious’ reaction from the Hand is Sowende doesn’t try to get Luke alone, meaning Sowende doesn’t end up captured
    * Eventually the Defenders manage to escape, perhaps aided with Strange’s portal-making capabilities ****



  * **_Take Shelter_**



  *     * After the assault on the Royal Dragon restaurant and the Defenders' escape, the Hand’s co-founders meet together for the first time in ages - Sowende not captured due to butterflies from Strange gatecrashing the meeting - and get plans in order for their War on New York
    * With the intervention of the Sorcerer Supreme, their ‘hidden weapon’ - the Black Sky - needs to meet its true potential, as compared to just being the mindless weapon it otherwise would’ve been; cue a ritual to help the Black Sky reach its ‘true potential’
    * In fact, what this does is summon an extradimensional demon the Hand encountered in their youths - and what corrupted them from K’un-Lun - into the Black Sky, though the acclimation rate is slow
    * (A Black Sky has innate capabilities but also is someone who is compatible with the entity, and can hold it indefinitely without burning out, not unlike the True Vessels for Archangels in Supernatural)
    * (The Darkness, meanwhile, is something like the Ghost Rider or Dormammu, an inter-dimensional entity which was a part of that ‘war between endless realms’ that was referenced in Agents of Shield)
    * Now manifest, the Black Sky has regeneration, super-strength, and perhaps one or two other supernatural abilities...in addition to its host’s superhuman fighting skills; and this is all - _seemingly_ \- under the Hand’s control
    * In addition to the Black Sky’s ritual, Madame Gao brings up the Defenders’ issues with New York citizens and groups, and the idea of turning the Defenders’ foes against them to further harry them
    * **\- Sce** **ne Break-**
    * Wong tells Strange that, after Kaisellius and the events of Strange’s namesake movie, Kamar-Taj is too strained to help with the shit Strange is getting involved with
    * Strange senses when the Darkness is summoned, tracks down Stick (who is with the Defenders)
    * Jessica is filled in on who the fuck the weird dude in the cape is, makes a crack about two white guys being the lead figures of two Asian mystic orders
    * Stick knows what the summoning is/just what it was that Strange sensed, tells the Defenders just what the Black Sky truly was, and that the Hand had just summoned the Darkness - the entity that got the Fingers tossed out of K’un-Lun for heresy, and the reason for their full naming being _Yami no te_ , Hand of the Darkness - into Elektra’s body.
    * With that, and the five Fingers together for the first time in centuries and no clue what the Hand was after, the fact is that they are likely _fucked_
    * **-Scene Break-**
    * Colleen Wing is confronted and captured by the resurrected Bakuto, not receiving aid from Defenders without Sowende running his mouth about how their loved ones would be in danger




	2. The War For New York

  * **_The War for New York_**



  *     * Jessica and Daredevil continue the investigation that started with the miniseries into the Raymond family, knowing it has some connection to the Hand’s goals
    * Meanwhile, forces rally against/pester/attack Luke, Jessica, and/or their close ones; the Hand starts whipping up the nascent anti-supe ‘This Stops Now’ movement started by Mariah Dillard at Harlem’s Paradise (see the ‘Luke Cage’ series), waging false-flag attacks on some of their figures and aiming the frenzied forces at the Defenders and their family
    * While they figure out that these are the results of Mariah Dillard’s speech, which ended up fostering a nascent anti-superhuman movement, some rightly guess that the Hand pointed the Defenders’ already-existing enemies at them
    * Strange elects the New York Sanctum to hold the Defenders’ loved ones rather than relying on police custody, as the enemies arrayed against them might just go through police without caring, and the Sanctum has its own defenses 
      * Jessica: Trish and Malcolm
      * Luke: Claire
      * Matt: Foggy and Karen
      * Stephen: Christine
    * Iron Fist realizes that Colleen is AWOL, starts knocking down doors to find out where she went
    * At some point, Hogarth Chao and Benowitz starts rattling chains to find out why Foggy didn’t do as he was supposed to (ie keeping Jessica from doing things that blew back on them); this likely intersects the TSN movement’s actions at a very bad time
    * Matt visits Father Lantom for guidance, is spotted by one of the Hand’s numerous affiliates and word makes its way to Sowande, who visits the church after Matt leaves
    * (Lantom recognizes Sowande as the militia leader from Lantom’s time giving aide in Rwanda [mentioned in Daredevil 1x09], a conversation between the two occurs before Sowande brutally murders everyone in the church)
    * Word of the massacre ends up in the news and is overheard by Matt, who has a bit of a breakdown over realizing that it was his visit that brought the Hand’s attention to the church
    * Danny learns where Colleen is and goes with others to rescue her, ends up dropping in on a trap; Colleen is freed, but it's a fighting retreat across the city
    * Meanwhile, Iron Fist is captured in the retreat, perhaps by the Black Sky and/or one of the Hand’s founders
    * **-Scene Break-**
    * Danny comes to under Midland Circle, is filled in on the purpose of just _why_ he was captured and why the Hand need him
    * Danny is tricked into opening the door by Alexandra - which messes with power all across the city - and is killed afterwards; the Hand starts evacuating the Substance, which begins causing minor earthquakes through the city



  * **_The Defenders_**



  *     * With the citywide power issue the Defenders realize that the door has been opened, and move to assault Midland Circle once again
    * Colleen + Claire + Wong - brow-beaten into helping evacuate the others if need be - bear the explosives that Raymond had put together for the building before his death kicked off Jessica’s involvement in the Hand’s actions, planning on breaking off on arrival to plant the explosives and drop Midland Circle into the giant hole underneath the building, reburying the Substance and preventing its excavation from destabilizing/destroying NYC
    * (With the Sanctum being left unguarded, Strange evacuates the Defenders’ non-combatant allies to Kamar-Taj to make sure Hand forces don’t sneak in and kill everyone while the Defenders make their move)
    * Arriving on-site, the Defenders - Jessica, Luke, Daredevil, Strange, and Stick - are met by the Hand’s co-founders and the Black Sky; learning Danny has already been killed, a battle breaking out between the the co-founders and Defenders
    * Sowende is killed by Daredevil after he admits to having been responsible for the church massacre, while Stick and Alexandra duke it out; the Black Sky reappears bearing a severed arm, stating she’d ripped it off of Colleen Wing before killing her, then killing Bakuto when he attacks the Black Sky in anger
    * This brings fighting to a quick pause as everyone re-evaluates matters, during which the Black Sky comes clean on just what the ‘Black Ascension’ ritual did, and that its not actually under the Hand’s control
    * The battle degenerates further, becoming Defenders v. Black Sky v. surviving Hand Founders; fighting ends when Wong comes in to announce the explosives were planted, which is the mark at which people start trying to evacuate
    * Stick stays to ensure the others make it out, either being killed by Hand/Black Sky forces or when the explosives go off and Midland Circle sinks into the earth
    * The Defenders make it out of Midland Circle, returning to Kamar-Taj to find a grievously-wounded Colleen being treated by Claire; Wong managed to temporarily drive off the Black Sky due to aspects of its nature, and used that respite to evacuate Claire and Colleen before finishing the explosives preparation
    * When Defenders + co. return to the NYC Sanctum, an artifact there activates and attaches itself to Colleen’s stump
    * Wong states that the artifact is called the Witchblade, a weapon/gauntlet which has been dormant for decades and has decided to choose a new host; Wong also states that it tends to bond until their host dies or somehow goes against its ‘ideas’ (aka no slaughtering innocents), and with Colleen’s arm apparently being a lost cause, the Witchblade has likely made itself a prosthetic to ‘aid’ its host
    * Defenders + associates talk about the future of NYC, from mopping up Hand remnants to dealing with the repercussions of the ‘This Stops Now’ movement having been set on the Defenders and their associates, to what will happen to Rand Industries considering Danny Rand’s corpse is missing and likely buried under Midland Circle; group agrees to try and stick together in some form, helping undo some of the damages done to NYC with the variety of resources and positions available to them all
    * (Strange tells them his help will be lessened due to his responsibilities to Kamar-Taj, but that he’ll do what he can to help chip in, especially with his home being in NYC as well)



  * **_Stinger(s)_**



  *     * A wounded Alexandra, as well as Madame Gao, are shown having escaped Midland Circle, only for Gao to kill Alexandra for Alexandra’s reckless actions and decisions leading to the Hand’s worst state in centuries
    * Elsewhere, Murakami is shown wounded and stumbling away from the battle, only to be found by knocked unconscious by unknown forces and bundled away
    * The Black Sky is also shown having survived, though she might be shown actively digging her way free of the ruins of Midland Circle as compared to having made it out before the building fell in
    * **-Scene Break-**
    * One of the caches of the Substance, evacuated from under Midland Circle by Hand forces and later lost, is being experimented on and tested, with the researchers telling their superior(s) that it might be useful in their revitalization studies
    * Off to the side, the one who stole the cache is telling a figure that he’d done what he could to loot while ‘everyone was distracted’ and that he knew Osborn would reward handsomely for biological materials, especially ones under such guard
    * Norman Osborn tells the researchers to get a move on with their tests, and that he’s not getting any younger
    * **-Scene Break-**
    * At an in-ruins HYDRA facility, a HYDRA researcher is trying to hurriedly activate a self-destruct mechanism for the entire base, but is killed before he can implement it by a rampaging entity
    * The entity is told by his partner that they wanted the researcher alive to question, to which the entity tells Sterns to do it himself next time
    * Out of the shadows steps Samuel Sterns, body mutated and head enlarged by his exposure to the gamma blood, telling Blonsky that the ones already captured are to be left alive, as they need the researchers to find out what’s changed since they were locked away and just where Bruce Banner had gotten off to... 



**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, the Witchblade isn't Marvel; however, I only remembered that after setting up this plot-point, and I figure it's a minor enough fudging to fit with everything else going on.
> 
> And yes, _The Incredible Hulk_ is canonically in the MCU, so I'm milking that for all its worth.


End file.
